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How to Host Webinars with Teachable

Morgan Timm

| Jul 10, 2018

My interest in online entrepreneurship was born when I was in college. I poured over blogs and videos teaching how to make a living online, and I downloaded just about every freebie that I could get my hands on.

My favorite way to learn new entrepreneurial strategies, though? Webinars.

In fact, I loved watching webinars so much that I’d often skip my real classes to sit through these online trainings. (Sorry, mom and dad!)

Webinars are powerful marketing tools because they help you really connect with your audience. They’re often more attractive to your audience than simple blog posts or podcasts because speaking directly to your audience live on camera feels more personal.

But webinars aren’t everybody’s cup of tea.

In fact, they are some people’s nightmares. Nevermind the stage fright that comes from going live on video and knowing that there are hundreds of people watching your every move, the tech side of things can be a nightmare, too.

Way back before working at Teachable, I used to teach college students how to make money blogging, and in 2015 I hosted a series of webinars and the first three were all their own brand of disastrous.

You see, my talents lie in content creation, not tech. Getting a webinar set up to begin with was enough to drain me for a week.

So imagine my facepalm moment when I realized just how easy it was to set up a webinar with Teachable.

Why host webinars with Teachable

Creating a one-stop-shop for your online business is so valuable because it establishes cohesiveness around your brand and eliminates any potential confusion from your students.

While there are third-party webinar programs that are wonderful, hosting webinars directly through your Teachable school can save you money and save your students the confusion of where exactly to find you.

How to host a webinar with Teachable

Let me get this out of the way first and foremost: Teachable isn’t a webinar program and we don’t have a native webinar hosting feature, but the workaround is simple enough that it may as well be native.

To host your webinar on Teachable, you’ll need to choose a third-party livestream program to embed into your Teachable school.

For the purpose of this blog post, I’m going to walk you through hosting your webinar through YouTube’s live stream feature, but just know the steps are nearly identical for all programs.

Using YouTube to host webinars on Teachable

If you don’t already have a YouTube account, sign up for one and verify your account using your phone number. Once you’re logged into your YouTube account, click the icon in the upper right hand corner of the page and select “YouTube Studio (beta).”

From there, you’ll be taken to the YouTube Studio where you’ll be presented with a new sidebar on the left of the screen. Click “missing features” and then “Live streaming.”

Setting up your livestream on YouTube

Click “get started.” From there, things are going to get just a tiny bit complicated because we have to set up encoding. Now, this isn’t nearly as difficult as it sounds and YouTube will walk you through start to finish.

Chances are, you’ll be live streaming using your computer’s webcam. With that in mind, select this option on YouTube’s Guide to Encoding page.

This is one of the most straightforward options, and there are very few steps you’ll need to take to get started.

If you’re on the go, you can also choose one of the YouTube approved mobile stream encoders, in which case you’ll need to download the programs and insert your Stream Key to identify yourself. (You can find your stream key on your YouTube live page.)

Customizing your livestream on YouTube

Next, customize your livestream by adding a title, description, and thumbnail. You should also select a relevant category from the drop down menu and schedule the livestream so it begins at your advertised time.

Finding your livestream embed code

Once your live stream is set up and ready to go, your next step is to embed it into your Teachable school.

To get your embed code, scroll to the bottom of the YouTube Livestream page to find the sharing options and click “view on watch page.”

That will take you to the live page of your livestream. If you spend any time on YouTube, the page should look familiar. Livestreams and prerecorded YouTube videos both live on watch pages with the same format. Click “share.”

By clicking share, you’ll pull up a share page with a handful of options. We want to click “embed.”

From there, your embed code will pop up. Copy that and log into your Teachable school.

Embedding your livestream into your Teachable school

Select which course you’d like to embed your livestream into, and then choose or create the lecture where your livestream will end.

Click “Add Code.”

Paste the embed code we copied earlier into the code box and click “save.”

When it comes time to start your webinar, depending on the encoder you’re using, you can either go to the livestream page on YouTube and go live or open the encoder you downloaded, authenticate your livesteam, and click “stream.”

Using livestreams in Teachable to build your list

Even if you haven’t created your online course yet, you can still host webinars in your Teachable school to build your email list.